Rift
by MetaArchangel
Summary: One-shot/drabble. Spoilers for Season 5.  The day Michael cast Lucifer from Heaven was a day neither Castiel, nor Gabriel, would never forget.


**Title: Rift**

_Rating: PG-13_

_Spoilers: Season 5_

_Characters: Castiel, Gabriel, Lucifer, Michael_

* * *

><p>The first rays of light were spilling up over the horizon below — the Earth's dawn — when Castiel felt the first tremendous quake rock the breadth of Heaven.<p>

His feathers quivered in alarm, pulling close about his Grace in a fit of spitting sparks. The ethereal material that played the part of faux ground beneath him continued to shake, tiny aftershocks of whatever holy wrath was being wrought in the cosmos far above him. Faint curls of incandescent light swirled off into nothingness, shifted out of place by the violent, grating movements.

He had been waiting at the border of the skies, waiting and watching for Gabriel's return. His older brother was rarely in Heaven now: he was most often seen flitting between Heaven and Earth, playing his role as Father's Messenger and delivering revelation from on high to the humans below. Castiel was still young, not even yet a Seraph, a warrior; so he spent his days stretched on into infinity looking with wondering eyes as his brother streaked across the globe, his many wings catching light like jewels as he passed. He found it easier to hide out here than to be in the midst of the chaos that had seized Heaven. He thought maybe Gabriel felt the same, and that was perhaps the reason he was never home more than he had to be. War was terrible enough when it did not involve the entirety of your kind.

Castiel had been pondering with unease the source of the disturbance when yet another came, more terrible than before. If he had legs, the sharp shift of air around him likely would have knocked him to his knees. He pulled his wings closer, huddling down beneath them like something sheltering within a cocoon. He trembled in dread as the tumult continued in the skies, and he trembled still harder when it grew in intensity and he realized it was coming towards him.

He was torn. He did not want to leave his post – it was one of his chief joys to look down upon the Earth, ever curious about the comings and goings of those creatures whose lives were so small, so fleeting. Only here was he able to escape the bloodshed that had gripped his brothers and sisters. At the same time, whatever was swiftly descending upon him had his Grace shivering into a tight, cold ball of fear within him. Fear is not something he is used to experiencing: in Heaven there was almost never anything to fear.

But even as he thought this many things seemed to occur at once: Gabriel rocketed over the lip of Heaven, wings flaring and shaking off the coils of the mortal realm to touch down aside him; the uproar that was rocking the very foundations of Heaven crashed down in a splendor of piercing light and sound some small distance away; and Castiel perceived, with a lance of absolute terror, the source of the commotion.

He felt himself quailing down instinctively, all but hidden beneath his wings even as Gabriel wrapped him tight in his magnificent Grace and hauled him forcefully away. Castiel's sense of his brother was one of anxiety, pain, and resignation as he looked on the fierce struggle that was steadily ripping down the wall between divine kingdom and earthly dominion. Castiel tried to reach out to his brother with his own Grace, the need to comfort another of the Host burgeoning in him and momentarily defeating his own horror. He moved his wings just enough to see the clash of holy judgment and outraged pride reaching fever pitch before him.

He had known, of course, about the conflict that had become rife between Michael and Lucifer. Every angel in Heaven had felt it coming on, like humans could sometimes sense an oncoming storm. But even the rumors, even the outbreak of battles and his own steadily impending sense of growing calamity could not have prepared Castiel for the sight before him.

His brothers were locked in startling combat, their Grace in tandem throbbing so viciously his own cowered back into Gabriel's reassuring grip. Their wings, razor sharp with aggression slashed at each other, the span of them eclipsing Gabriel and Castiel in freezing shadow even at such a distance. Castiel felt Gabriel pull him still further back from the fray, but the younger angel could hardly bring himself to notice. His gaze was drawn — like a moth to flame — to the violence unfolding, unstoppable and absolute.

Michael shone like the purest glimpse of the sun, so immeasurably bright and just that Castiel could not bear to look on him, and nearly turned his face away. His Grace burned with the riveting passion of supreme righteousness, blistering and blazing as he reached out with a shaft of molten silver to pierce one of Lucifer's many wings.

Lucifer screamed, the place where his mouth would have been a gaping black vortex of anguish as he clawed at the blade pinning him below his brother. Lucifer burned cold where Michael burned hot; his wings dripped commingled ice and lightning, the eking white of his damaged Grace spilling over them like blood.

_Brother,_ Castiel heard Lucifer say, and he shuddered with the indescribable pain and betrayal that colored his brother's Voice. Castiel sensed more than saw Lucifer reaching out for Michael's face – to claw or caress he would never know, for Michael grasped him and bore him back down, driving another burning brand through Lucifer's wings. Lucifer scrabbled at them, sobbing and spitting in rage, calling and cursing his brother; his Grace writhed in a whirl of dizzying impressions. Castiel closed his eyes, feeling sickness rise in him like bile in a human throat. Gabriel wrapped his wings around his younger brother, folding in upon himself and pulling Castiel with him — as though if he made them both small enough the thing they knew would come next would not hurt them. Castiel did not know which feeling was more overpowering: his own nausea or Gabriel's grief and helplessness. He felt as though he were drowning in both.

If Michael noticed them there, he did nothing. He gazed imperiously down upon his stricken brother, visage grim and Grace as steady as the foundations of the earth.

_Lucifer,_ he intoned, Voice vacillating the fabric of space surrounding him, _you have disgraced yourself, and you have disobeyed our Father the Lord. In choosing to question and not follow; in choosing sentiment over His will and in leading a faction of traitors against the Kingdom of Heaven you have forfeit your right to reside among the Host. I cast you now, as Michael First among the Seraphim, into the Pit: I name you Fallen, and all those who go with you._

The air split upon this pronouncement of doom, the gap between Heaven and Earth ripping wide open like a vacuum: a sucking whirlwind that had Castiel clinging desperately to Gabriel, and Gabriel clutching back, recoiling with his Grace in an attempt to escape the hungry storm. Michael alone remained unmoved, Grace flaring into the sky like a beacon of wrath, a conduit of His retribution as he tore the blades from his brother's essence.

No longer pinned down, Lucifer made one last futile attempt to lunge at Michael, Grace twisted in a horrible, ravaged travesty of his former beauty; transported in despondence and impotent rage. Michael gripped his brother tight and flung him away, casting him down through the layers of ozone separating them from Earth with the whole, titanic force of Heaven behind him. Castiel could feel Lucifer plummeting, the sense of his brother the Fallen growing more and more remote until it vanished completely.

Silence reigned, a silence so profound and electric that Castiel felt nailed to the spot, staring in wide-eyed dismay with all that had transpired skating like mirages against him. Gabriel hugged him more tightly, eyes never leaving Michael.

Michael dismissed their presence entirely, wings spread and duty done; he took off in an impressive flash of heat and light, off to cast down all those who had stood with Lucifer. Once more, Castiel was not certain if it was his or Gabriel's Grace that trembled in his wake.


End file.
